Hordeum brachyantherum subsp. brachyantherum

Northern barley, Northern Barley

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Northern barley is a California native perennial grass found in meadows, pastures, and streambanks throughout California (excluding the Desert region) at elevations below 3,400 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces small greenish-white flowers with delicate awns in compact clusters. Growing with robust stems 30 to 95 centimeters tall, it forms dense, upright clumps with smooth leaf sheaths. Its leaf blades are relatively narrow, less than 19 centimeters long and no wider than 9 millimeters, appearing glabrous or with sparse short hairs. The central spikelets feature straight glumes 7 to 17 millimeters long with short lemma awns.

Habitat: Meadows, pastures, streambanks

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: < 3400 m

Bioregions: CA (exc D)

California counties: Yolo, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Lake, Los Angeles, Mono, Marin, Kern, El Dorado, Alpine, Monterey, Amador, Sierra, Modoc, Alameda, Inyo, Lassen, Napa, Fresno, Placer, Shasta, Solano, Stanislaus, Tehama, Trinity, Ventura, Butte, Contra Costa, Mendocino, Humboldt, Madera, Mariposa, Nevada, Glenn, Plumas, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tulare, Tuolumne, San Diego, Colusa, Merced, Del Norte, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Yuba, Sacramento

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.